What are you currently running?

[Baron]

Somewhere online I posted that my daughter has rolled up a RQ2 newtling, and platypus, and a human. I'm preparing a RQ2 game that will center on the banks of the River of Cradles, from the perspecrive of the riveefolk, with a somewhat whimsical Wind in the Willows feel to it. It will be as canon as old school Prax usually got in practice, ie see the Okamoto logs for play examples. I will probably streamline the RQ2 rules somewhat, although I haven't settled on that yet. We will play when I transition my current group of teen and parent players (about nine players currently play regularly) away from my 2yr old Tekumel campaign. I got to hold off on the new campaign when the RQ2 kickstarter appeared -- I ordered a spanking-new hardcover of RQ2 for my daughter's birthday in July. I'm really looking forward to it!

[K Peterson]

52 minutes ago, Baron said:

It will be as canon as old school Prax usually got in practice, ie see the Okamoto logs for play examples.

What now? What are these logs - got a link to them?

[Baron]

Sure: http://seiyuu.com/okamoto/writing/

[Chaot]

16 hours ago, Mankcam said:

I did trim the skill list a bit, but not overly so, I found the skill structure in OQ to be reasonable and not overwhelming for my lads. We use OQ Basic, so all magic is Basic/Battle Magic and I just rule that if you are a Wizard you can choose Spells whereas everyone else gets those powers as 'potions' so once used they are gone. It works pretty well so far, and I used the advice from the full OQ rules on how to make up Specialist Warriors and Wizards and just went with that.

I have OQ Deluxe and just tool a look at it again.  It's good.  I might be modeling some stuff off of it, like using it to guide trimming the skill list and maybe it's approach to combat skills.  Two things I want to do is adjust the professions list so that they sound more heroic than shopkeeper and open up Sorcery/Magic so that you don't have to get 16 Pow/Int to use it.  I want to trim down the spell lists to some basic starter spells that they can use to help define their characters and leave the other spells for special in-game events.  I will reserve summonings and creating magic staves/wands etc to characters with 16 in Pow/Int.  I'll probably do something similar to you with potions/scrolls because consumables are fun!

12 hours ago, wombat1 said:

Also, the world building material, which simplifies my life tremendously.

I love world building material, especially when I can draw from it at random.  I find most campaign history stuff to be dull, rarely impacting actual play to any great extent.  I'm more excited by the ideas and connections that come up during play.  I was just poking around to see if I had C&S.  I thought I did, but I can't seem to find it.  Didn't C&S have a thing where character creation was impacted by a star chart?

[wombat1]

3 hours ago, Chaot said:

I have OQ Deluxe and just tool a look at it again.  It's good.  I might be modeling some stuff off of it, like using it to guide trimming the skill list and maybe it's approach to combat skills.  Two things I want to do is adjust the professions list so that they sound more heroic than shopkeeper and open up Sorcery/Magic so that you don't have to get 16 Pow/Int to use it.  I want to trim down the spell lists to some basic starter spells that they can use to help define their characters and leave the other spells for special in-game events.  I will reserve summonings and creating magic staves/wands etc to characters with 16 in Pow/Int.  I'll probably do something similar to you with potions/scrolls because consumables are fun!

I love world building material, especially when I can draw from it at random.  I find most campaign history stuff to be dull, rarely impacting actual play to any great extent.  I'm more excited by the ideas and connections that come up during play.  I was just poking around to see if I had C&S.  I thought I did, but I can't seem to find it.  Didn't C&S have a thing where character creation was impacted by a star chart?

As for the star chart, yes, has that too, and I will drag that in as well in due course, but it is early days for the project yet.  In general  terms, as there are a bunch of different C and S editions, one begins by rolling to see whether the character is well-aspected, neutrally aspected, or poorly aspected, and then one rolls for a star sign, each of which has bonuses or penalties associated with certain types of professions.  If one ends up poorly aspected, at least in the newer additions, one has to roll for some sort of flaw, and if one ends up well aspected one has to roll for some sort of benefit. 

At one point, in consequence, we ended up with the (poorly aspected, therefore flawed) near-sighted yeoman archer.  I was half tempted to offer to let the player rolling this little drama out in character creation off the hook, but he said it was about his luck and took the character.

This would be a natural to add into a BRP system.

The feudal manor material is very handy for mapping out the world--my club comes out of a wargaming tradition, and so it is often times very handy to know how many  knights, and other miscellaneous trouble makers can be found on any given manor or castle.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2016 by wombat1

[Akerbakk]

On 3/5/2016 at 8:32 PM, steamcraft said:

Why is EU out the window? You still have access to the information.  You can even get the WEG books if you want.  The only reason I could see if for 'canon' reasons, but let's face it Ep VII is essentially fan fiction.  George Lucas has nothing to do with the content of the film nor did it directly or indirectly get his approval.  At least with the old Lucasfilm there was a bit of Lucas control exercised through the hierarchy put together.  It just happens that Disney can legally make the Star Wars films.  The EU was legally made before Disney. 

I like the Old Republic.  I would personally set a game in that time period, but not because of anything to do with EU. 

Well...sure I have access to it. I am using the new movie/ Disney acquisition to communicate to players that I am not following the books.

The real story is that Star Wars RPGs can feel very pigeon-holed and static if you follow the books. A guy working as a janitor that died on the Death Star over Yavin has his whole family history through the Great Hyperspace War inscribed through books and comics. Luke and friends encounter bug'bears when they take their second crap in the woods on Endor moon. Geez!

I just want players to swing lightsabers, shoot blasters and zoom around in space ships. I don't really want to have to worry about when exactly the Z-95 Headhunter hit the market, or if I'm introducing Mandalorians to the Galaxy too early. Use the Force! ...roll a D100!

Edited March 7, 2016 by Akerbakk
Humor?

[Questbird]

I'm running two games at the moment, with one on the back burner, and alternating with being a player in a couple of others. My group plays something every month, so we can't finish campaigns quickly. It's a compromise but it keeps us going.

One of my games is a long-running (2 decades+ on and off, with different characters and campaigns) fantasy campaign set in the world of Nehwon (Fritz Leiber's one -- after Fafhrd and the Gray Mousers' retirement to Rime Isle) using Elric! rules as a core with a few mixins from the BGB and occasional extradimensional forays into the Cthulhu Dreamlands. For magic in that game I've incorporated the Rolemaster Spell Law book*, and also the freeform magic system from Maelstrom*. That campaign has been dormant for a few months though.

The other one I'm running is a Swords of Cydoria science-fantasy game, using the sourcebook and the vanilla BGB and my own hitpointless combat system*. I'm loving that one, have done about five sessions so far.

I'm also paused in running the 'Curse of Cthulhu' campaign, with my investigators stuck in Transylvania.

Most of my campaigns are published adventures strung together or modified.

* described elswhere on this forum

[sladethesniper]

Currently gearing up to run a BRP espionage themed supers game (like the Bourne Identity with street level superpowers)...pulling in a lot of stuff from other genres to keep the paranoia level up.

Currently have a ninja and private investigator...and waiting for the other two players to make a character concept.

-STS

[steamcraft]

On 3/7/2016 at 6:45 PM, Akerbakk said:

Well...sure I have access to it. I am using the new movie/ Disney acquisition to communicate to players that I am not following the books.

The real story is that Star Wars RPGs can feel very pigeon-holed and static if you follow the books. A guy working as a janitor that died on the Death Star over Yavin has his whole family history through the Great Hyperspace War inscribed through books and comics. Luke and friends encounter bug'bears when they take their second crap in the woods on Endor moon. Geez!

I just want players to swing lightsabers, shoot blasters and zoom around in space ships. I don't really want to have to worry about when exactly the Z-95 Headhunter hit the market, or if I'm introducing Mandalorians to the Galaxy too early. Use the Force! ...roll a D100!

Ok, I understand the issue.  One of the reasons I hate the Forgotten Realms setting.  Everything is too detailed out and potentially everyone of the players knows too much about the world. 

[Baron]

And this is different from Tekumel, or Talislanta, or Glorantha, how?

[Frunk]

Well Blood Tide... My group hankered after a pirate game, are comfortable with Cthulhu (as a system, not a cuddling buddy!) and it was a toss up between this and the Renaissance one. I wanted a game that suited my GMing style and Blood Tide seemed to fit.

Most games in our group are very "grounded in reality" which is all fine, but I prefer to play games where the players can REALLY change the world significantly. Games offer a chance for a little escapism and it is good to throw the "big questions" at players in the context of a game. i.e. If you had the power to change things, would you? And would you be able to live with the consequences?

Blood Tide has a roughly sketched background with several protagonists (real & imagined) each seeking their own version of world domination through religion, slavery, mindless slaughter, magic, colonialism, money, etc. It sets up enough to fire off the imagination, but little else, so if you are a GM that likes to "riff" it is a great start. I prefer to GM when I am not sure what is going to happen next and you have to think on your toes and make up stuff on the spot... then in between sessions form these riffs onto something more melodic and set up the next series of possible events. Some players like the fact they can pretty well "do anything"... but others would indeed ike to just go into the next dungeon room and collect treasure... but that style of GMing is not my thing. I quickly become bored if I know what is going to happen, 37years of RPG's changes how you run things!  

The BRP system lets me forget about the mechanics a bit and allows freeform invention of reasonably coherent simulations of events as they pan out, which suits me.

So when you ask "what are you running"... I think it is a blend of background, mechanics employed, game style (cinematic, etc) and GM style that can answer the question properly.

Do you agree?

 

[K Peterson]

2 hours ago, Frunk said:

So when you ask "what are you running"... I think it is a blend of background, mechanics employed, game style (cinematic, etc) and GM style that can answer the question properly.

Do you agree?

I think it's great to provide more context with the answer, which can show, more explicitly, how and why people run the games they do .

Edited March 11, 2016 by K Peterson

[sladethesniper]

Our long standing CoC game finally ended as they PCs were too insane to continue, but they did survive!

But, I finally got the go ahead on my Supers game.  It will be near-future street level with a lot of conspiracies and some cyberpunk elements thrown in and will be a sandbox for my players to make their own choices.

So far I have three PCs:

Kade Killian MacCloud was born to a military family in the UK, the youngest of four brothers.  He was a difficult child, always somewhat violent but was able to just barely skip out of trouble while everyone else got caught and punished.  He had a way with his fists and a natural charisma that served him well throughout his life.  He joined the military, and always sought more challenge and so worked his way into the SAS, then a four man assault team, and eventually into the 00 program.

Then there was a botched mission, and instead of a clean getaway, they tracked Kade back to the UK, and killed his wife and his son, and his daughter is still missing.  Due to his mistake, Kade was bounced out of the service and spent years looking for his lost daughter.  He never found her, and Kade was forced to take odd jobs and worked with Geoffrey Devon D'Levant on several of his expeditions in Mongolia and Argentina, using those locations to continue with his search.  In Argentina, they suffered an attack by the Sendero Luminoso terrorist gang, and although Kade was able to successfully protect D’Levant, Kade was injured severely.  After returning to the UK, Kade went off the radar for a few months, eventually being found by D’Levant strung out on drugs in Marrakesh tracking what he thought was his daughter…

D’Levant got Kade cleaned up and made him a promise that after this project, that they would both go looking for his daughter.  Kade was personally tasked by his employer, Lewis Croaker, to ensure the safety of Geoffrey D’Levant. 

Professor Geoffrey Devon D’Levant is an orphan, his immigrant Arabic parents killed in mysterious circumstances, and the young infant was placed in the care of the social services, eventually being warded by the East London Occidental Outreach Orphanage and Academy (called the Eloo, run by the ever socially conscious Nicholas Linnear) as he was intelligent, no physical deformities and passed the strict mental and emotional screening process.  He was a natural and as he progressed through his academics and extracurricular activities was brought into the true purpose of the school, it was a feeder route for the ninja clan.  He was inducted into the clan and has been very successful in his duties as an assassin and thief of lost knowledge (for the Kaisho, Nicholas Linnear) as well as his cover as an archeologist working on retainer for Globus International (Linnear’s investment company). Personally tasked by the head of your clan, the Kaisho, he were sent to this location to determine if a set of the cursed Kuragari no Kuragari texts may exist in this cursed location. 

Ex-Cosmonaut Anzhelika Davidevna Sokol After a lifetime of working to become an astronaut and a test pilot, she had achieved her dreams…until a re-entry mishap from a mining mission that destroyed her ship, killed the crew and crippled her as she was struck with radioactive core samples taken from an asteroid that embedded themselves in her flesh and fragmented and crystallized in the explosion.  Losing both legs and her right arm, she was in a coma for six months as doctors worked to save her life. Seven years later, the project to regain her honor is near completion.  She was brought in to test her experimental exo-armor in the hostile environment of the caverns that were discovered as the final test to see if her new direct neural interface with the armor is acceptable to re-certify her as a cosmonaut.

The first game will be them exploring a set of mysterious ruins a mile below the surface discovered during an oil exploration test.  They will get their powers during that first adventure.

D'Levant is a ninja, MacCloud is the tank and Sokol will be a cyborg.

Eventually, I might bring import our long standing Pirate campaign from D20 to BRP, as Blood Tide really makes naval games in the age of sail so much easier and fun than that other system.

-STS

 

Edited March 13, 2016 by sladethesniper

[Hexelis]

We're chest-deep in Horror on the Orient Express, started in Sept. 2015, using a hybrid bastard of 6th/7th edition. We're loving it! 3 players nearly insane, just crossed the midway, the end is almost in sight. At a rate of every 2 weeks, probably be Sept. this year before we finish. A masterpiece product for CoC. Not big on 7th, but you can hardly tell. Luck points has been a big hit.

[Dudemeister]

 

7 hours ago, Hexelis said:

We're chest-deep in Horror on the Orient Express, started in Sept. 2015, using a hybrid bastard of 6th/7th edition. We're loving it! 3 players nearly insane, just crossed the midway, the end is almost in sight. At a rate of every 2 weeks, probably be Sept. this year before we finish. A masterpiece product for CoC. Not big on 7th, but you can hardly tell. Luck points has been a big hit.

The greatest Cthulhu adventure - and one of the few written adventures I really liked. Maybe because it was supposed to be on railroads. 

 

Currently running

BRP with a fair share of additives.

Our next campaign will be set in a coastal city. Different factions struggle for controle as the realm is drawn into civil war. Demons claw at the world since the band separating it from the Immatyrium is weakend. (Consequence from the last campaign)

The players decided to play clerical veterans, experts and specialists, but haven't as of yet decided through which angle to tackle the city.

I'm hopeing to change the mood to a more grittier one, still keeping it High Fantasy, because the girls in the group want it.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Dudemeister

[sladethesniper]

Just got the write up for the 4th PC in my supers game...

Engineer Doctor Chief Akinyemi “Akin” Juwari is the only son of an African warlord who wanted his son to not be embroiled in the endemic civil wars of Central Africa and eventually used the money the CIA and MI6 gave him to send his son get an education.  Graduating with a PhD in Geology, Akinyemi was employed by the Oil Ministry for several years. Eventually the civil war took a turn for the worse and his father and his entire pro-Western, pro-Government tribal army was exterminated.  Akinyemi returned home for the burial rites, but the enemy was waiting and during the ceremony attacked and killed off all the remnants of the tribe.  Four days later Akinyemi clawed his way out of the funeral pyre of bodies and stumbled into the rain forest.  Akinyemi has sworn vengeance on those who killed him and his entire clan, but after four years of searching, he has found nothing but rumors and dead ends concerning who they are, and why they attacked.  However, the fact that international oil companies are now clamoring for his favor as he was able to prove that he does still have the titles to those ancestral lands even after being assassinated two more times in the intervening time.  Through very careful financial and legal planning, he has been able to pass off those deaths as merely distant relatives, but there are those that know the truth…

 

-STS

[sladethesniper]

Well, here is my basic synopsis for my Supers game…take Shadowrun, but make all the magical aspects only visible to people with The Sight.  Therefore, on the face of it (which is what the first campaign is called, “On The Face Of It”), everything seems like Cyberpunk and that is how the characters are being introduced…to a near future cyber-distopia.

Their superpowers are either due to them being a real ninja, a powered armor wearing former cosmonaut cyborg, a noir private investigator who will get his powers (bullet timing and some TK) in big magic explosion, or a shamanic Immortal (the type from Highlander, but he doesn’t know that yet).

The first adventure will be exploring ancient catacombs filled with corrosive gasses and poisons.  Then the above ground complex will be attacked a quartet of anti-establishment super villains (Kalashnikov, Übermensch, Pariah and Agency).  That will set off the big magic explosion that will give the PI his powers and boost the other PCs inherent abilities a bit.  This will also release a dragon spirit who becomes an important NPC later on (the dragon will kill or enslave the survivors of the explosion).  The PCs will then escape and be blamed for the explosion…

From there they can then get involved in tracking down the “villains” (who are actually good, but very misguided), go to jail, or track down the dragon spirit that is on her way to start up a global draconic civil war that the PCs can now directly interact since they all now have The Sight and are now very aware of just how strange the world really is (similar to PCs in CoC or Nephilim).  This will be very sandbox so I am building out a LOT of the world (London, central Africa, Central America, and Berlin to start off with).

Due to the amount of NPCs and factions, each session, I am going to have a little handout of previous events, a few current events headlines (relating to stuff like oil companies, corporate warfare and/or the draconic war as seen through normal human eyes to act as side quest story hooks if they want them)  and all the NPCs and factions current whereabouts (if they bother to keep up with them…)

I think I might have some “power level” issues during game play (1 power gamer, 2 teen agers, one method actor), but if that happens, I can always have a random magical effect occur due to the nature of them gaining their powers to give a power or take one away or weaken it (if absolutely necessary for the one min-maxing power gamer in my group).

Anyone have any pointers on running this type of game?

-STS

[Akerbakk]

11 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

[Cut]

I think I might have some “power level” issues during game play (1 power gamer, 2 teen agers, one method actor), but if that happens, I can always have a random magical effect occur due to the nature of them gaining their powers to give a power or take one away or weaken it (if absolutely necessary for the one min-maxing power gamer in my group).

 

Anyone have any pointers on running this type of game?

 

-STS

 

It sounds like you've done a lot of the legwork to ensure an outstanding sandbox supers game. Your bit about the handouts is what I think will really drive immersion and exploration of your setting.

The one suggestion that I will make is one that you should weigh against the maturity and dynamics of your group: don't worry too much about game balance. It sounds like there could easily be something bigger and badder than the PCs just around the corner, based on the world you described. You may not need to concern yourself too much with inter-player balance either... My experience has shown that as long as every player gets some time in the spotlight, they don't care that their buddy Rick can crush a planet with his jaw.

Hope your game goes well, wish I could join!

[sladethesniper]

Well, it is only one player that acts that way, and frankly is the only player I have ever had that acts that way   Unfortunately, he IS a good roleplayer when he is not spazzing out about "almost dying" (when he took 1 HP of damage and ran away, while other players died as a result) or angry that when the reputation he spent so much time crafting in game boasting about his exploits came back to bite him when he was attacked from ambush while alone (which I assumed smart opponents would do, as did the rest of the group, but not him).  The other 99% of the time, he is great...

-STS

[Akerbakk]

5 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

Well, it is only one player that acts that way, and frankly is the only player I have ever had that acts that way   Unfortunately, he IS a good roleplayer when he is not spazzing out about "almost dying" (when he took 1 HP of damage and ran away, while other players died as a result) or angry that when the reputation he spent so much time crafting in game boasting about his exploits came back to bite him when he was attacked from ambush while alone (which I assumed smart opponents would do, as did the rest of the group, but not him).  The other 99% of the time, he is great...

-STS

Yes, I have had similar experiences with some players past and present. These instances have shown me that 'natural' consequences from the GM coupled with fellow players saying, "yeah dude, what were you thinking?" tend to set spaz players straight, especially if they play it right the majority of the time. Stuff you are already doing.

I had another thought to share: Sandboxes are hard for me to run. I tend to get so into reacting to what the players do that I forget about my plot. If I do that too much then the players can lose focus (Oh yeah! We were supposed to investigate something about that manor on the north side of town...). They lose interest in the game, despite the fact that I have a good story-line ready to go, I simply hadn't been emphasizing the beats of the plot. If this happens for you, my advice is to balance creating an immersive, living world for players to interact with while also keeping them moving forward with the story you are sharing. Hopefully you are better at it than I!

That's my 0.02 USD.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Akerbakk
Writing is hard.

[Mysterioso]

On 3/2/2016 at 11:09 AM, K Peterson said:

My own answers:

I'm currently running Delta Green using the playtest rules for the new edition...

How do you think these rules work for a post-apocalyptic game? Something more along the Book of Eli than Mad Max.

[K Peterson]

I've not seen the Book of Eli so I'm not sure I could rate how good a fit they'd be. (One of the last post-apoc movies I saw was The Road. Not sure how that compares to BoE).

I think that DG: the Rpg is a solid set of modern CoC rules that has the right amount of abstraction for my style of play. There is quite an emphasis on character relationships (through Bonds) which act as a resource for dealing with stress and sanity loss. If you like that kind of networking of a character's friends/family/compatriots and a sanity-model that's between traditional CoC and Unknown Armies, then maybe it'll work for you.

Converting it would require some work defining the 'professions' for post-apoc play. In this edition of DG, professions provide the primary basis of an agent's starting skill levels (with some free points to spend afterwards). The playtest doc does contain guidelines on creating your own professions, and you'd be spending some time building post-apoc archetypes, I think.

[sladethesniper]

For my games, I make a detailed enemy plan. It has the people, places and things the enemy needs to make thier plan work and a timeline of events, rather like a lot of time based call of cthulhu adventures have.  That way if the PCs wander off on some side quest, the enemy steals the amulet from the museum on day 3, sets up ritual on day 4 and ends the world on day 5...but by having events still happen other than those affected by PC actions, I find it adds to the verisimilitude of the game world and keeps PCs focused.

-STS

[Mysterioso]

5 hours ago, K Peterson said:

I've not seen the Book of Eli so I'm not sure I could rate how good a fit they'd be. (One of the last post-apoc movies I saw was The Road. Not sure how that compares to BoE).

I think that DG: the Rpg is a solid set of modern CoC rules that has the right amount of abstraction for my style of play. There is quite an emphasis on character relationships (through Bonds) which act as a resource for dealing with stress and sanity loss. If you like that kind of networking of a character's friends/family/compatriots and a sanity-model that's between traditional CoC and Unknown Armies, then maybe it'll work for you.

Converting it would require some work defining the 'professions' for post-apoc play. In this edition of DG, professions provide the primary basis of an agent's starting skill levels (with some free points to spend afterwards). The playtest doc does contain guidelines on creating your own professions, and you'd be spending some time building post-apoc archetypes, I think.

The Road works just as well.  (BTW, I'd recommend The Book of Eli.) 

As I'm thinking of a game rather close to the end with the characters being in a National Guard unit, this sounds like it might be a good set of modern rules to use. 

Thanks.

[K Peterson]

If you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out the DG QuickStart Guide ("Need to Know") as well as the "Core Rules Manuscript" that's available on the DG Kickstarter campaign page.